


if all it is (is 8 letters)

by independentalto



Series: (all that i can hear is) a simple song [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, a hard swerve from canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22156366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/independentalto/pseuds/independentalto
Summary: It's eight letters. Why is it so hard?
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse
Series: (all that i can hear is) a simple song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594819
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	if all it is (is 8 letters)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on "8 Letters" by Why Don't We, only it's the version recorded at the Spotify Studios.

He's not sure why the words are so hard to say. 

First, he tries breaking it down: three words, eight letters. Countless opportunities. One phrase so simple a five-year-old could utter it, yet still so powerful to stop a grown man in his tracks. 

It isn't like she makes it hard. How could she, with hair the color of sunlight and eyes to match the sky that accompanied it; with that voice that soothed all of his needs and insecurities without judging him? Honestly, it was slightly scary, how well she knew him: one time, she'd shown up at his door with cold medicine and soup before he'd even admitted to himself he was coming down with something.

At first, he tries to tell her when he wakes in the morning, sunlight streaming through the curtains they'd forgotten to close the night before. When they're laughing on the couch with greasy Chinese takeout later that same night while the remnants of a botched lasagna sat in the sink. Hell, he even tries to tell her the traditional way -- over a candlelit dinner at the French place just down the street -- but the words still don't come, even attached to a $300 bottle of wine and creme brulee. 

He thinks that maybe, just maybe, he told her when they were both beyond plastered, arguing in a back alley in the pouring rain over God knows what. The memory itself isn't exactly crystal clear, but what he does remember is her absence in his bed the next morning. (The sunshine isn't particularly kind to him that morning, either.) 

Three words. Eight letters. One phrase. Why was it so damn hard? 

(Secretly, he knows why: saying it would be admitting someone had, at long last, understood all of him; in turn, he was giving himself over like he never had before. To her like he never had before.)

So he swallows the individual letters one by one, marching over to her apartment with a bouquet of roses in his hand. And when she answers the door, sky blue eyes threatening to rain, he forces them out. He has to. Eight letters would not spell the end of their relationship. He wouldn't let it. 

In the end, she doesn't take the flowers, but she does take the words as easily as he'd pushed them away, and for the rest of their lives, they don't go a day without saying them.


End file.
